Dialect effects in hesitations in older children’s spontaneous speech

Natural speech is interspersed with pauses, word repetitions, phrase repairs, and other disfluencies. These hesitations, reflecting speakers’ performance delays including word fillers, self-corrections, and filled or silent pauses are typical traits of spontaneous speech. Acoustic characteristics of hesitations have been studied primarily in adults, providing evidence that at least some hesitation types exhibit speaker-inherent strategies that are language specific. It is unknown whether older children, whose abilities to engage in conversation approach those of adults, utilize hesitations that reflect the adult model prevalent in a given speech community. Here, we examine spontaneous conversations of American English-speaking 8–12 years-old children growing up in the South (Western North Carolina) and in the Midwest (Central Ohio). We seek to determine whether hesitation types in their speech are shaped by features of their regional dialect. Acoustic analyzes include breathing pattern, phrase length, articulation rate, silent and filled pauses, filler vocalizations, and repair strategies. Preliminary findings indicate that dialect does have an effect on the nature and frequency of hesitations. The work is currently ongoing, and the results will be discussed.